In Europe 10.4% of total GDP is spent on healthcare expenditures. Of this, €350 Bn is direct hospital expenditures. In most EU Member States, hospitals are the main provider of healthcare in expenditure terms. ICUs are some of the most resource-demanding and expensive hospital units consuming 20% of all hospital costs. 1 out of 10 ICU respiratory patients are characterized as being “severe”, meaning very hard to manage and return to normal breathing. This group of patients often has an extended Length of Stay (LOS) at the ICU, making their care expensive. In fact, these 10% of patients consume 37% of all ICU costs. In addition, non-optimal ventilation and extended stays put patients at risk of lung traumas or increased mortality.
Key to reducing costs and risks is to ensure the severe patients can be safely weaned off mechanical ventilation sooner than is the case today. Why is this a difficult process? Today, a specialist doctor attends an ICU patient approx. 3 times a day. This doctor has to decide on the proper ventilation strategy in a matter of 10-15 minutes during each time. The decision – based upon a patient’s individual physiological state (i.e. cardio & pulmonary), guidelines, clinical preferences and current ventilation strategy – requires the doctor to interpret all this available information while keeping previous clinical experience in mind. But this infrequent evaluation is not optimal for the patient. Studies show that the LOS can be drastically reduced if experts oversee the ventilation management 24/7. Clearly not a sustainable solution, we see a clear need for an automated ICT approach to reform the workflow and aid the ventilation management 24/7.
We have developed BEACON Caresystem – a novel and ground-breaking ICT-based ventilation assist system, which enables better ventilation strategies and a more efficient patient care workflow. As an add-on to standard ventilation systems it provides ventilation recommendations 24/7 based on non-stop, personalised monitoring of patients. Based on unique mathematical algorithms and physiological models, it recommends weaning off scenarios, supporting the critical decision-making processes. This will especially benefit the most severe patients. Implementing the BEACON Caresystem potentially reduces the Length of Stay (LOS) with 15-25% – cutting ICU costs with the proportional amount. Looking just at critical ICU patients, this provides Europe with an annual savings potential of €3.9Bn – €6.5Bn of the €26Bn ICU cost of severe patients
To offer BEACON Caresystem commercially with the claimed value proposition of a Length of Stay reduction (LOS), our overall objective of the ICU-CARE SME project is to provide documented proof of BEACON’s LOS reduction in comparison to clinical routine. Consequently, this SME project (ICU-CARE) will seek to prepare and ex-ecute a multi-centre clinical trial of the BEACON system with a total of 500 patients. In collaboration with experts at Aalborg University (DK) and 5 hospital test sites (UK and FR), we want to:
• Validate the hypothesis of expected 15-25% LOS reduction for mechanically ventilated patients using an ICT approach
• Demonstrate ICT-enabled workflow optimization: From doctor (infrequent) to nurses (24-7)
